/*
 * Copyright 2008 - 2009 Lars Heuer (heuer[at]semagia.com). All rights reserved.
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */
package com.semagia.atomico.dm;

/**
 * An entity has a unique id, a title and carries the information when it was 
 * updated.
 * 
 * @author Lars Heuer (heuer[at]semagia.com) <a href="http://www.semagia.com/">Semagia</a>
 */
public interface IEntity {

    /**
     * Returns a permanent, universally unique identifier: An absolute IRI.
     * <p>
     * The returned id is a unchanging, globally unique IRI.
     * </p>
     *
     * @return An identifier which can be used to identify the entity uniquely.
     */
    public String getId();

    /**
     * Returns the entity title.
     *
     * @return The text/plain title of this entity, never {@code null}.
     */
    public String getTitle();

    /**
     * Returns the date when this entity was updated.
     *
     * @return The last modification date.
     */
    public long getUpdated();

}
